The ARF Central Committee Eastern Region released the following statement after Armenian President Serge Sarkisian met with Armenian American organizations in New York City on Oct. 3.
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Today, representatives of the ARF Central Committee Eastern Region were present at a meeting between Armenia President Serge Sarkisian and various eastern United States Armenian American organizations at the Palace Hotel in New York City.
We attended to tell President Sarkisian why the ARF opposes the Armenia-Turkey protocols in their current state. We urged President Sarkisian to stop the dangerous protocols signing and ratification process and recommit himself and his government to establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey that don’t endanger the inalienable rights of the entire Armenian Nation.
We pointed to those parts of the protocols that are especially adverse to the Armenian Nation’s interests, including the sections that:
1. Promise that Armenia will formally recognize Turkey’s current border, thus validating the dispossession of Western Armenia and waiving the right of the Armenian Nation to negotiate fully over Armenian Genocide reparations.
2. Promise that Armenia will permit the Armenian Genocide to be assessed “impartially” and “scientifically” using historic documents, as if the fact of the genocide has not been already researched in that manner exhaustively. Such a formulation opens the path toward rendering the genocide debatable.
3. Promise that Armenia will defend the integrity of its neighboring nations’ territorial claims, thereby jeopardizing the self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabagh.
We sounded these alarms and emphasized our serious concerns to President Sarkisian face-to-face on behalf of our members and supporters in the eastern United States. However, during the course of the meeting, it became clear to us that our appeals were falling on deaf ears.
The Armenian government’s defense of the protocols baffles us when their content clearly evinces Armenia’s abdication to Turkey and her long-standing and openly held anti-Armenia and anti-Nagorno-Karabagh agenda. President Sarkisian apparently has not heeded our and others’ warnings about Turkey’s open anti-Armenian political ambitions, choosing instead to repeat unconvincing claims that the protocols contain no preconditions and represent a great step forward for Armenia-Turkey diplomatic relations.
We attended the meeting, conveyed our message, and received President Sarkisian’s unbending response. At this point, we can only hope that President Sarkisian seriously entertains our concerns and those he has already heard—and will continue to hear—from the Armenian Diaspora and back home in Armenia. President Sarkisian’s failure to take heed and recess the protocol signing and ratification process will lead the Armenian Nation into a dangerous political thicket from which she and her people will not emerge unscathed.
ARF Central Committee
Eastern Region
Oct. 3, 2009
Why would he listen to you or anybody? His purely undemocratic rise to power is based on a mafia clan system of violence and croniosm. You can’t even call him a dictator or autocrat — those suggest political systems. He’s a mafia boss.
I don’t understand why the people of Armenia elected this guy…
It is becoming increasingly clear that the current “Diaspora Tour” of Mr.Sarkissian is not at all intended to listen to the concerns of the eight million members of Armenian Diaspora and adjust his administration’s policies vis-a-vis Turkey accordingly, but rather a “Soviet style” charade to put a facade of legitimacy on his disastrous policies towards Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon all the Diaspora organizations to immediately send an open letter to the Armenian Parliament and people, stating that, if the current administration goes ahead with its’ intended approval of these infamous Protocols, the Diaspora organizations, representing the majority of the Armenian Nation, will consider the current government illegitimate and not representing the interests of the Armenians worldwide.
As a consequence, the Diaspora organizations will suspend all contacts and cooperation with the current regime, except for the programs that directly benefit the people of Armenia.
It is high time for the government, the Parliament and the people of Armenia to realize that the security and prosperity of Armenia is not advanced by making shortsighted secret deals with our sworn enemies and their superpower handlers, but rather with the combined efforts of people of Diaspora and Armenia proper, based on open and mutually respectful dialog and co-operation.
No Armenian, be it a President or a Catholocos of all Armenians, can speak and act in the name of the Armenian Nation without first obtaining its’ consent!
It is also high time for the authorities in Armenia to change their condescending and patronizing attitude toward the Diaspora Armenians. Instead of creating a useless “Ministry of Diaspora” to give the impression of the importance attached to the subject, it should engage in genuine and concentrated efforts on all levels to bring both halves of Armenians together, so that, one day in not so distant future we can all live freely together in our ancestral homeland, in peace!
The Diaspora organizations should also make crystal clear, in writing, to all the governments and entities trying to impose these Protocols on Armenians, that regardless what happens with them, they are not off the hook when it comes to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the restitution of our historic rights. We in the Armenian Diaspora, along with our brothers and sisters in Armenia, will redouble our efforts with increased ferocity to bring the perpetrators to justice, recover our occupied homeland and take our rightful place under the sun!
Harout..
I got chills when I read your piece.. I am 110% with you.. WELL SAID, WELL WRITTEN…
Henry,
People did not elect the President and his mafia.. The President and the Mafia elected themselves…..everything the President does and says is not legit if you ask me because he does not represent the county and the people… he was falsly elected as our President.. Those who have money have power.. and this is the perfect case for that..
I am ashamed to say that I am part of the country that is run by the head mafia and not a true legit President..
G
Happy New Year and Marry Christmas!!!